2) Tom Brady, New England Patriots. Until further notice, nobody has more ‘it’ than Tom Brady, who has been overflowing with ‘it’ since his first year as a starter. He’s the only active quarterback with three Super Bowl rings. However, since he has lost two Super Bowls to Eli Manning, I guess Manning has more “it.” So…

1) Eli Manning, New York Giants. If to be the man you have to beat the man, well, Eli Manning is now the man. Nobody has ‘it’ in the 4th quarter quite like Eli, which is when ‘it’ becomes really important.

3) Peyton Manning, Denver Broncos. If ‘it’ was Tapenade, Manning would be first on the list.

7) Tim Tebow, New York Jets. Without question, in possession of more ‘it’ than any quarterback without a Super Bowl ring, and maybe even more than some of the ones who do.

8) Alex Smith, San Francisco 49ers. This dude is loaded with ‘it’ and grit and teammates that hit. He went about 20 games without throwing an interception and he nearly completed more than 100% of his passes a couple of weeks ago.

10) Robert Griffin III, Washington Redskins. It doesn’t matter that his team loses, he has ‘it’ until the first game he struggles in 2013.
11) Andrew Luck, Indianapolis Colts. Despite being a rookie, he has shown ‘it’ many times over. He’d be higher on the list if he had shown ‘it’ in a meaningful game.

12) Russell Wilson, Seattle Seahawks. He probably has more ‘it’ than any of the rookie quarterbacks out there, and he’s also the one quarterback your average fan might trip over.

13) Matt Schaub, Houston Texans. It says a lot about how little ‘it’ this guy has when three rookies are ahead of him.

14) Andy Dalton, Cincinnati Bengals. Not having the best year, but let’s not forget that Dalton’s copious amounts of ‘it’ made people argue that he should have been rookie of the year over Cam Newton in 2011.

16) Mark Sanchez, New York Jets. Somewhat of a tough one, because he looks like he has less ‘it’ than anybody for long stretches but he also was overflowing with ‘it’ just a couple of years ago. Which is better than say, his draft classmate below.

17) Josh Freeman, Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Freeman has never had ‘it.’ He’s never even smelled ‘it.’

18) Sam Bradford, St. Louis Rams. Bradford really hasn’t done anything, but as a former #1 overall pick, he gets the ‘it’ benefit of the doubt for awhile.

19) Christian Ponder, Minnesota Vikings. Early in the year it looked like he had ‘it’, but ‘it’ can be a fickle mistress. Samantha Steele may be the same way.

24) Matt Cassel, Kansas City Chiefs. In the absolute best case scenario, you could squeeze enough ‘it’ out of Cassel to make it to the playoffs and lose in the first round.

25) KevinSkelton, Arizona Cardinals. At one point, John Skelton had a lot of ‘it’ but nobody noticed. At one point, Kevin Kolb was a promising player who had no ‘it’. Now they’ve morphed into one person with no talent and no ‘it.’

26) Brandon Weeden, Cleveland Browns. He’s got old man ‘it’ which as you can imagine, doesn’t smell very good.

27) Blaine Gabbert, Jacksonville Jaguars. Not good enough to prove that he doesn’t have ‘it.’

28) Michael Vick, Philadelphia Eagles. There was a time when Vick looked like he might have had ‘it’ but if he ever did, he has pretty clearly since fumbled it away.

Romo bobbling it.

29) Matt Ryan, Atlanta Falcons. The better Ryan gets in the regular season, the more it becomes frighteningly clear just how little ‘it’ he really has.

30) Jay Cutler, Chicago Bears. While I don’t think Cutler ever really had ‘it,’ any ‘it’ he could have had was certainly deleted from the system by Mike Martz and Cutler’s inability to finish the 2010 NFC Championship Game.

31) Philip Rivers, San Diego Chargers. In college, Rivers was overflowing with ‘it’ but he’s spent his entire NFL career with Marty Schottenheimer and Norv Turner. He contracted ‘anti-it’ by osmosis, and the disease is accelerating.

32) Tony Romo, Dallas Cowboys. The louder ex-Cowboys speak about how Tony Romo really does have ‘it’ the more obvious it becomes that Romo will choke away a game before you finish reading this sentence.

33) Cam Newton, Carolina Panthers. Whether it’s body language or genuineness of smile or ‘it’, Newton has less of it than arguably any quarterback ever.

Tim Truemper

While fun reading, this article and analysis is more about subjective judgment than the more empirical perspective it usually supplies. Tony Romo # 32? That is over valuing the few glaring failures and ignoring the other successes. But then again, I’m biased, too.

MattMillenJustForMen

Perhaps your sarcasm detector needs a little fine-tuning?

Richie

Did you mean to post this on April 1? 🙂

Chase Stuart

I’m bringing back the Friday rant!

Shattenjager

The comment about Flacco, especially the “identical defenses” line is the clear winner of this post. However, it creates a paradox, as it surely increases Flacco’s level of “it.”

Red

Awesome, Chase! I especially enjoyed your placement of #1 Eli behind #2 Brady, a lighthearted way of showing just how ridiculous the “it” argument really is. Maybe next Friday you could create a ranking of how “elite” all the QB’s are, since that seems to be the catch phrase of the year.

Chase Stuart

Thanks Red. I’m glad you enjoyed.

The elite idea is a good one, but I may need to hold off on QBs for a bit.

Chase Stuart

I think we need to watch out, as Flacco’s ‘it’ level is rising at an astonishing rate.